New Apple TV Announced With Siri And App Store

Apple announced the long-awaited fourth-generation Apple TV at its “Hey Siri” media event in San Francisco, California on September 9.

The new version of Apple TV is a completely innovative gaming-focused version. Apple designed a gaming-focused version of Apple TV in an effort to challenge Sony and Microsoft’s hold on the multi-billion pound gaming industry.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook said.

“We need a new foundation for TV, one that’s built on powerful hardware. This is the future of television, coming now!”

The new Apple TV was designed based on powerful hardware, a modern operating system, and totally new user experience with Siri integration, tools for developers, and most importantly, an App Store.

The Apple TV runs on “tvOS,” with a revamped iOS 9-style interface. It comes with more advanced touch-based remote that Apple’s calling the “Siri Remote.” The top of the remote includes a glass touch surface for swiping through content as we do on an iPhone, and there’s a built-in button and dual microphones for calling up Siri.

Siri integration is a key part of the new Apple TV interface, as it lets users ask Siri to bring up content. It’s possible to search through multiple apps to find a TV show or movie, and at launch, supported apps include Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime. Siri can answer questions about who’s starring in a movie, bring up information like the weather outside, and ask Siri to replay parts of a movie that were missed or fast forward through content. For example, asking Siri “What did she say?” will rewind a movie 15 seconds and temporarily bring up subtitles. Isn’t it something amazing?

Internally, the Apple TV includes a 64-bit A8 chip and 2GB RAM, with support for key iOS technologies like Metal, GameKit, and UIKit, all of which will allow developers to bring console-quality games to the device. The Apple TV is available with either 32GB or 64GB of storage.

The Apple TV will begin shipping at the end of October in nearly 80 countries. It is priced at $149 for the 32GB version and $199 for the 64GB version. Apple will continue selling the existing Apple TV for $69, but that device will not support the new App Store.

If you haven’t booked your new Apple TV device yet, book it right away!